George W. Bush said that the days of Western governments coddling authoritarian rulers for the sake of narrow strategic or economic interests were over

In a speech to Britain’s Parliament last autumn, George W. Bush said that the days of Western governments coddling authoritarian rulers for the sake of narrow strategic or economic interests were over: “No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient.”

In the months since, the administration has taken that message to many places, probably the most important of which is China. The United States sponsored a resolution to condemn China’s human rights record at the UN Human Rights Commission in April – a resolution defeated by Beijing and 27 of its dictator friends – while Dick Cheney told students in Shanghai the same month that civic and political freedoms were the true sign of a great nation.

The Bush administration should be commended for bringing the cause of democracy back into focus in its international relations in general and its China policy in particular. But it cannot lead where others will not follow. And it is the failure of the domestic and international community to take the cause of democracy in China seriously that is at present helping to sustain tyranny there. Fifteen years after the crushing of the Tiananmen movement, this is one of the great moral failures of our time.

Let’s be clear about what is at stake. While it cannot be compared with the ongoing humanitarian disasters of sub-Saharan Africa, the absence of basic civil and political freedoms in China is a huge blot on justice in our world.

China’s 1.3 billion people, 4.5 times the population of the entire Middle East, represent 60 percent of the global population that lacks basic freedoms, according to the nonprofit organization Freedom House. Moreover, authoritarian rule in Beijing directly sustains a dangerous nuclear tyranny in North Korea and indirectly sustains unreformed authoritarian regimes in Vietnam, Burma and Laos.

Yet the cause of democracy in China, notwithstanding lone voices from the Bush administration, merits scant attention today. Not only are the pressing concerns of democracy-building in Iraq and Afghanistan taking up much attention, but, perhaps more worrying, the world appears inclined to actually support the Chinese Communist Party, rather than merely tolerate it.

The French have proposed lifting a post-Tiananmen embargo on arms sales to Beijing, even though 3,500 people remain in prison for exercising basic freedoms and tens of thousands more languish in police detention camps. Research organizations and universities in Western countries have turned their attention to terrorism or more proximate geographic regions. China has become an issue for economists and technocrats rather than democrats.

There are two excuses offered for this inaction, neither plausible. One is that China’s people are not interested in democracy or freedoms. As Russell Dalton and Nhu-Ngoc Ong of the University of California at Irvine argued in a recent study, this is patently untrue. The Chinese, despite all the risks, regularly and overwhelmingly express disapproval of their current system and demonstrate a desire for democratic rule.

The second excuse is that democracy might make China internally unstable or externally aggressive.

Such concerns are overblown. Regime change would not cause state collapse in China, even if there was some deterioration in the great edifice of authoritarian stability. The state in China is both regulatively effective and fiscally capable. It collects about 11 percent of national income in tax revenues, a sign of reasonable state power. World Bank indicators of regulatory effectiveness put China at or above the average for its economic level.It is wrong to force China’s long-suffering people to single-handedly endure tyranny for the sake of global business or regional security.

Changes are afoot in China in any case. Besides brute repression, the Communist Party is today propped up by urban economic growth and ugly nationalism. These are not enough to sustain it in the long term. An increasingly sophisticated and complex society will some day demand political choices, choices that the enlightened reformers in the regime will be forced to grant. But foreign governments who encourage the Communists to make changes now would be helping foster a smoother and faster democratization. By delaying reform, we raise the chances of a tumultuous popular overthrow.

So here are four things that could be done now to address our moral failure in China:

Make summitry with Chinese leaders contingent on progress in political reforms, such as an expansion of local elections or the legalization of opposition parties. Devise disclosure standards for companies that invest in China, so they would report on their activities in encouraging worker organization and rights awareness. Encourage universities and think-tanks to re-engage the issue of democracy in China.

Not least, engage local leaders and people – especially women – in China on the issue of democracy and rights.

This is the least we can do to stop abetting dictatorship in China.

Bruce Gilley is a doctoral student in politics at Princeton University and the author of “China’s Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead.”
Human rights in China

PRINCETON, New Jersey In a speech to Britain’s Parliament last autumn, President George W. Bush said that the days of Western governments coddling authoritarian rulers for the sake of narrow strategic or economic interests were over: “No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient.”

In the months since, the administration has taken that message to many places, probably the most important of which is China. The United States sponsored a resolution to condemn China’s human rights record at the UN Human Rights Commission in April – a resolution defeated by Beijing and 27 of its dictator friends – while Vice President Dick Cheney told students in Shanghai the same month that civic and political freedoms were the true sign of a great nation.

The Bush administration should be commended for bringing the cause of democracy back into focus in its international relations in general and its China policy in particular. But it cannot lead where others will not follow. And it is the failure of the domestic and international community to take the cause of democracy in China seriously that is at present helping to sustain tyranny there. Fifteen years after the crushing of the Tiananmen movement, this is one of the great moral failures of our time.

Let’s be clear about what is at stake. While it cannot be compared with the ongoing humanitarian disasters of sub-Saharan Africa, the absence of basic civil and political freedoms in China is a huge blot on justice in our world.

China’s 1.3 billion people, 4.5 times the population of the entire Middle East, represent 60 percent of the global population that lacks basic freedoms, according to the nonprofit organization Freedom House. Moreover, authoritarian rule in Beijing directly sustains a dangerous nuclear tyranny in North Korea and indirectly sustains unreformed authoritarian regimes in Vietnam, Burma and Laos.

Yet the cause of democracy in China, notwithstanding lone voices from the Bush administration, merits scant attention today. Not only are the pressing concerns of democracy-building in Iraq and Afghanistan taking up much attention, but, perhaps more worrying, the world appears inclined to actually support the Chinese Communist Party, rather than merely tolerate it.

The French have proposed lifting a post-Tiananmen embargo on arms sales to Beijing, even though 3,500 people remain in prison for exercising basic freedoms and tens of thousands more languish in police detention camps. Research organizations and universities in Western countries have turned their attention to terrorism or more proximate geographic regions. China has become an issue for economists and technocrats rather than democrats.

There are two excuses offered for this inaction, neither plausible. One is that China’s people are not interested in democracy or freedoms. As Russell Dalton and Nhu-Ngoc Ong of the University of California at Irvine argued in a recent study, this is patently untrue. The Chinese, despite all the risks, regularly and overwhelmingly express disapproval of their current system and demonstrate a desire for democratic rule.

The second excuse is that democracy might make China internally unstable or externally aggressive.

Such concerns are overblown. Regime change would not cause state collapse in China, even if there was some deterioration in the great edifice of authoritarian stability. The state in China is both regulatively effective and fiscally capable. It collects about 11 percent of national income in tax revenues, a sign of reasonable state power. World Bank indicators of regulatory effectiveness put China at or above the average for its economic level.It is wrong to force China’s long-suffering people to single-handedly endure tyranny for the sake of global business or regional security.

Changes are afoot in China in any case. Besides brute repression, the Communist Party is today propped up by urban economic growth and ugly nationalism. These are not enough to sustain it in the long term. An increasingly sophisticated and complex society will some day demand political choices, choices that the enlightened reformers in the regime will be forced to grant. But foreign governments who encourage the Communists to make changes now would be helping foster a smoother and faster democratization. By delaying reform, we raise the chances of a tumultuous popular overthrow.

So here are four things that could be done now to address our moral failure in China:

Make summitry with Chinese leaders contingent on progress in political reforms, such as an expansion of local elections or the legalization of opposition parties. Devise disclosure standards for companies that invest in China, so they would report on their activities in encouraging worker organization and rights awareness. Encourage universities and think-tanks to re-engage the issue of democracy in China.

Not least, engage local leaders and people – especially women – in China on the issue of democracy and rights.

This is the least we can do to stop abetting dictatorship in China.

Bruce Gilley is a doctoral student in politics at Princeton University and the author of “China’s Democratic Future: How It Will Happen and Where It Will Lead.”
Human rights in China

PRINCETON, New Jersey In a speech to Britain’s Parliament last autumn, President George W. Bush said that the days of Western governments coddling authoritarian rulers for the sake of narrow strategic or economic interests were over: “No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient.”

In the months since, the administration has taken that message to many places, probably the most important of which is China. The United States sponsored a resolution to condemn China’s human rights record at the UN Human Rights Commission in April – a resolution defeated by Beijing and 27 of its dictator friends – while Vice President Dick Cheney told students in Shanghai the same month that civic and political freedoms were the true sign of a great nation.

The Bush administration should be commended for bringing the cause of democracy back into focus in its international relations in general and its China policy in particular. But it cannot lead where others will not follow. And it is the failure of the domestic and international community to take the cause of democracy in China seriously that is at present helping to sustain tyranny there. Fifteen years after the crushing of the Tiananmen movement, this is one of the great moral failures of our time.

Let’s be clear about what is at stake. While it cannot be compared with the ongoing humanitarian disasters of sub-Saharan Africa, the absence of basic civil and political freedoms in China is a huge blot on justice in our world.

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